From in situ investigation to FEM analysis: Application of Al-Hadba minaret foundation

Recently, the historic buildings in the old Mosul city-northern Iraq, were devastated. Since these buildings represent a precious value, maintenance, rehabilitation, preservation, and management becomes inevitable. The current research discusses the possibility for reviving the historical Al-Hadba minaret, more than eight and a half centuries. The study adopted to achieve this goal by treating the weak soil layers surrounding the minaret foundation. The treatment follows two different techniques: the first is to treat the soil layers by cement-grouting technique, while the second one includes the installation of micropiles beneath the minaret foundation. The research work included the use of a 2D model of the Finite Element Method in the analysis, thanks to PLAXIS software to achieve the planned targets. The study concerned in comparing the analysis of soil-stress distribution before and after the treatment in order to reach the optimal decision which can be adopted in future works to rehabilitate the minaret. Also, the study gave great attention for analysing the total vertical displacement of the foundation, the soil bearing capacity and the safety factor of the minaret integrity. The study concluded that there is a marked improvement in the performance of treated soil layers, which leads to increase the minaret stability. The cement-grouting technique gives better soil layers performance compared with the installation of the micropiles.